A writer in the Richmond Dispatch proposes that the Negroes in the South be induced to voluntarily emigrate to Brazil, Mexico or other countries where they are wanted, and even the old plan of fifty years ago, to return them to Africa is again brought forward. To this last suggestion, the Yonkers Statesman replies:
The notion that the black can be successfully re-shipped to Africa dies hard; but there are few things plainer than that he has no desire and no purpose to be thus disposed of, but regards this land as being as much his as it is the white man's. It would be hard to dispute his title, grounded as it is in age and effective service. The Negro believes he belongs here, and here he means to remain; and the prospect that his mind can be changed is certainly not very cheering.
The Times-Democrat of New Orleans thinks that the true solution is white immigration, but the Daily Express of San Antonio, Texas, replies: "The principal objection to this scheme is that the Negro will not go till the white immigrants come, and the white immigrants will not come until the Negro goes."
Congressman Oates, of Alabama, advocates the disfranchisement of the Negroes, or rather as a Democrat he suggests that the Republicans do it. He says that as the Republicans gave him the ballot, the South would cheerfully acquiesce if they should take it away from him. But it is not likely that the Republican administration will lead off in such a movement. Indeed, from present appearances, the new President is looking in exactly the opposite direction.
WISER VIEWS.
There are men, however, in the South, wise, conscientious and "to the manner born," who take entirely different views of this great problem. The Hon. J.L.M. Curry, once a General in the Confederate Army, subsequently the efficient Secretary of the Peabody Fund, more recently our Minister in Spain, and now again at his post as Secretary of the Peabody Fund, utters himself in this forcible language:
"I want to say to you, in perfect frankness, that the man who thinks the Negro problem has been settled is either a fanatic or a fool. I stand aghast at the problem. I don't believe civilization ever encountered one of greater magnitude. It casts a dark shadow over your churches, your government of the future. It is a great problem which will tax your energies. Your ancestors and mine a few years ago were cannibals and pagans. They have become what they are, not by virtue of white skin, but by improving government and good laws. You let the Negro children get an education where yours do not, let the Negro be superior to you in culture and property, and you will have a black man's government. Improvement, cultivation, education is the secret, the condition and guarantee of race supremacy. I will astonish you, perhaps, by saying that if the Negro develops and becomes in culture, property and civilization, superior to the white man, the Negro ought to rule. You see to it that he does not become so. The responsibility rests with you."
Rev. A.G. Haygood, D.D., Secretary of the Slater Fund, closes a review of Senator Eustis's recent paper in these earnest words:
Whatever political theory men form or oppose; whatever their speculative opinions about the origin of races; whatever their notions concerning color or caste; whatever their relations heretofore to slavery and what went along with it, this is absolutely certain: no question involving the rights and wrongs of men, civilized or savage, white or black, was ever yet settled so that it would stay settled by any system of mere repression. And to those who believe in Jesus Christ it is equally certain that nothing can be rightly settled that is not settled in harmony with the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. If there be a Divine Providence no good man need be afraid to do right to-day; nay, he will fear only doing wrong.